Richie Porte goes into the first rest day of the Tour de France in second overall but finds himself up against an almost invincible Vincenzo Nibali. Despite never having finished on a grand tour podium, the Australian makes it clear that he will not settle for a place in the top 3 but has his eyes on the overall win.

Richie Porte went into the Tour de France with the intention of riding in support for Chris Froome. However, 10 days can make a massive difference in a grand tour and at the halfway point he finds himself with a big opportunity to prove himself on the biggest scene of them all.

Logic says that Vincenzo Nibali is the big favourite to win the race as he enjoys a healthy lead of 2.23 over Porte who is second overall. In yesterday's stage, however, Porte showed that he is riding to win when he took full responsibility for the chase behind Nibali even though it ended up costing him a few seconds to his podium rivals.

“Nibali’s up the road, that’s the race,” he said on the rest day. “In some ways, it’s good to see that I’m the one taking the race up and taking the responsibility, but it’s frustrating that the others are just marking each other.

“Anyone is beatable. He’s in a great position and he has a great team that has controlled this race really well. We’ve seen that this Tour throws in surprises everywhere so it’s not over until Paris. We have to attack him now. It’s our race to take to him and I’m sure Valverde and all these guys coming into the Pyrenees will do…we’re going to see some exciting racing.

“I want something and I want it right now but the team have been great. They’ve put me in a fantastic position each day. Every climb we do, it’s a fight for position in the last kilometre, even on the descents as it’s wet and quite dangerous but I tip my hat because the boys haven’t missed a beat in the last 10 days and I think we flew under the radar a bit and I think that’s what we had to do as there was no stress in the team.

“I train with Chris Froome every day. I don’t really see him as a Tour winner. He’s more of a mate. Last thing he said to me was ‘you can have these guys, believe that’. He told other guys in the team to get around me, and I appreciate that. He sometimes has more belief in me than I do but he said before the crash that we could both be on the podium.”